


one last chance to make it real

by janie_tangerine



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: ADWD spoilers, End of the World (sort of), F/M, First Time, Porn with Feelings, Post - A Dance With Dragons, Rocks Fall Everyone Dies (sort of)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-09
Updated: 2013-01-09
Packaged: 2017-11-24 06:59:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/631697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janie_tangerine/pseuds/janie_tangerine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>For some reason, the prospect of dying with a sword in his hand, Brienne at his back and his sword in her hand while they do something worthy of songs doesn’t sound as ridiculous as it would have before they met.</i> Or: where winter has come, the Others are coming as well, Jaime and Brienne are at the Wall and Jaime isn't going to die before having set things straight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	one last chance to make it real

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ozmissage](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ozmissage/gifts).



> written for the last round of got_exchange on lj; the prompt was _last night on earth_. The title is from Bruce Springsteen, the characters belong to GRRM, nothing is mine (sadly for me).

Jaime wraps his fur tighter around his shoulders and starts wondering if this is the time he’s going mad for real – he still doesn’t know what possessed to leave what used to be Castle Black’s dining hall, which at least had been fairly warm since it’s crammed with people, and to come outside, during the night, while he’s at the damn _Wall_.

Fine, word is that they’re not going to live much longer, and he’s had enough proof that the stories about the White Walkers are true, so it doesn’t really matter if he freezes to death right now instead of being killed by some kind of wight tomorrow or the day after (it can’t be long, though), even if it would be an embarrassing death.

It almost makes him laugh that even if _now_ the Wall is crawling with knights and soldiers (and not just with black brothers) it’s probably too late. Then again, from what he’s heard, no one took the Night’s Watch’s warning seriously until the undead things started showing up also beyond the Wall. He’s here just because the situation escalated after he and Brienne brought Sansa Stark back to Winterfell, and – well, what else did he have to lose? He couldn’t go back, could he, and while Sansa Stark had insisted that he stay – he couldn’t. Maybe the Kingsguard wasn’t his place anymore, but he also knew that Winterfell couldn’t ever be.

And dying to save the realm didn’t seem like a bad bargain – he lost his reputation for it after all, he might as well die for it. He isn’t expecting recognition for it this time, either.

He hadn’t counted on something, though.

The sound of the door leading up to the post where he’s currently staying opening and then closing throws him out of his train of thought.

He turns backwards – well, it’s fitting that she should show up when he’s thinking about her.

Brienne stares at him as she wraps herself in a fur of her own, and she doesn’t seem that impressed with his choices.

“Do you want to kill yourself?” she asks – she also sounds half-asleep. He probably woke her up when he stood to go out – they were sleeping next to each other. (And next to ten other people.)

“Always straight to the point, wench. No. Apparently frozen bodies tend to turn into wights and that wasn’t in my plans.”

“Then what are you doing out here at this time in the night?” She moves closer and he wishes he had a real answer. He could tell her that the day lasts barely three hours now – what difference does it make? It’s still freezing, regardless of whether the sun is up in the sky or not.

He shrugs. “Believe me or not, I merely felt like it. Not everything has to have an explanation.”

She doesn’t seem too impressed with that answer but instead of going back inside she walks until she’s standing next to him, looking down at the ground. One of her hands touches the rail gingerly – there are blisters all over her fingers, not that Jaime’s surviving hand is faring much better.

“Careful. You don’t want to get frostbite on your sword hand.”

“You’re one to talk. You were the one coming out here first.”

“You could leave.” He wishes he could take it back the moment it’s out of his mouth – he doesn’t really want her to go, hells, he doesn’t even know what he was trying to accomplish by going outside except for catching a bit of fresh air.

“Do you want me to?” she asks, her tone carefully blank. She’s giving him the side where her cheek is ruined and Jaime suddenly feels guilty for having sent her out alone all over again.

“No,” he says tiredly. “Not really.”

Her lips curl up just slightly, as if the answer somehow pleases her, and Jaime shouldn’t probably ask the question itching to leave his tongue, but – it just seems preposterous to worry about whether it’s appropriate or not. Not that he cared much for it in the first place.

“Wench, really, make me a favor. Will you?”

“What kind of favor?”

“You know that a hoard of Others is coming at some point. And it’s going to be sooner rather than later. I’ve asked you before but you wouldn’t answer. Why in the seven hells did you even come here? You could have stayed at Winterfell. Sansa would have had you in her service without even questioning it. That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?”

Brienne looks down at the very far below ground.

“It was. But I would have been more useful here.”

Jaime doesn’t even bother trying not to look skeptical. “You know it’s not true. And please don’t tell me that you feel like you owe me for – for what happened in the Riverlands. You couldn’t have done otherwise. And I don’t remember someone else stepping up to be my champion.”

“It’s not – it’s not that either,” she whispers, sounding dejected. “But it’s about you.” He can barely hear that last sentence, but he does nonetheless, and for a moment he can’t believe his ears.

“It’s about me.”

“I understand why you would choose an honorable death. I merely didn’t think you should have gone to it alone.”

Her cheeks are slightly pink and she isn’t looking at him, and for a moment Jaime thinks he heard it wrong.

He sincerely doesn’t know what to answer. He doesn’t know if he should thank her or ask her what in the seven bloody hells was going through her head – in the end he takes a deep breath and puts a hand on her arm, forcing her to look at him.

“Please tell me it wasn’t all. Brienne, I really couldn’t do better than this and you know that, but it wasn’t your case. You can’t be meaning it.”

She bites down on her lip and at least doesn’t look down again.

“I’m afraid I did, ser. And I understand that there are other people you might have wished were here instead, but –”

“No,” he interrupts, maybe too quickly, but he isn’t letting her finish if he has guessed right the way it was supposed to go. He’s thinking about that dream he had on his way to King’s Landing, the one that made him come back for her, where everyone just _left_ and he was begging them not to and then _she_ was there. “There aren’t _other people_ that I wish were here.”

Her eyes go wide, as if she doesn’t know what to tell him – she wasn’t expecting that answer, probably.

“I should go,” she says, and then he decides that he’s done dancing around this, he’s done keeping his mouth shut, he’s just _done_ not addressing this just because he hadn’t known what to make of it until now. They don’t have more time. Either he does it now or he doesn’t do it anymore, and he won’t be the kind of craven who doesn’t act when he knows he should.

“No, you shouldn’t.” He tightens his hold on her arm, moving so that they’re in front of each other, and she’s shaking – probably because of the cold, not that he isn’t, as well.

“I – I shouldn’t?”

“Wench, you heard me the first time.”

She shakes her head, as if she doesn’t get what he’s aiming at. There’s disbelief written all over her face and Jaime thinks about punching Ronnet Connington in the face, and he wonders if this is how she looked like when he gave her that rose.

“And believe me, I’m not amusing myself at your expenses. I think it’s a bit too late for that.”

“But you _can’t_ –”

“I’d know, wouldn’t I?” 

And then he puts his hand on her cheek, his fur half-falling to the ground, and he kisses her.

Truth to be told, he might have done it a long time ago, when she came to his camp the first time, but then she told him about Lady Stoneheart, then there was his trial, then they went searching for Sansa Stark and they found her and they brought her home, and at none of those times it seemed appropriate to do it. It took him time to come to terms with it, and he didn’t even begin to think about it seriously until Connington’s teeth fell to the ground in that bear pit – at that point, he couldn’t keep on trying to convince himself that his sister was the one person he’d ever wanted and that everything else was something _collateral_ that could be explained differently.

If he’s dying tomorrow or two days from now or _soon_ , he’s not going without having told her first. At least.

Brienne merely stands still, not pressing back but not even moving away, and he leans back slightly, enough to look at her in the eyes. Well, from the way her eyes are wide and her lips are parted in surprise, that wasn’t what she was expecting.

“I – I didn’t think that you could ever –” she stammers, shaking her head. “What are you even doing?”

“Kissing you. What did it seem to you?”

“I – why?”

“Because I’ve wanted to for a damn long time. Now, if that was unwelcome then you have my apologies, but if it’s not –”

“I never said that,” she says quietly. “But – _me_?”

“I could ask you the same question.”

“Are you mad? Who’d refuse you?”

He lets out a bitter snort. “More people than you think. Not going over losing my damn sword hand, I’m technically a turncloak, most of the kingdom still thinks that I slayed Aerys because I felt like breaking an oath or two and what’s left of my family most probably hates me, if they’re not dead already. I didn’t come here thinking I’d go back and you know it. I’m hardly the best prospect in the realm.”

“I – I beg to disagree.” She reaches out for his half-fallen fur and puts it back on his shoulder – he feels like half of his body is ice. Right. Maybe he should have avoided letting it fall off.

 _To the seven hells with it_ , he thinks, and then he throws his left arm around her waist and kisses her again, and this time he’s doing it right. He pushes against her lips and she parts them as her cold, shaking hands go around his shoulders – she moans when his tongue meets hers and when he presses closer to her, and gods it’s obvious that she’s never kissed anyone before but it just sends a thrill down his spine because he knows he’s the first to do this (and most probably the last, but it’s useless to think about that). Good. He’s not going to make her regret it, at least. It’s long and heated and nowhere near refined and her lips are cracked and they bleed when his teeth touch them, and when they part they’re almost too red against her pale face.

And he decides it’s not enough.

“Let’s go to the tower,” he whispers, and Brienne’s eyes go wide again.

“The Lord Commander’s tower? But – it’s abandoned, no one’s been there since –”

 _Since Lord Commander Jon Snow died and then rose again_ , Jaime knows that story.

“Who cares? No one is going to be there, and there’s a bed, and it’s abandoned. No one said it’s destroyed or that it’s full of wights.”

“But – everyone sleeps in the same place for a reason, it’s not safe if –”

“ _Brienne_. If we go back to the hall now, there’s no way we’ll ever be alone again until we both die in this godsforsaken place. It’s – we won’t get another chance. And – I want to, all right? Who cares about safety when the world is ending?”

She stares at him for another moment, pondering it, and for a moment he thinks she’ll say no and he doesn’t know why the idea makes him feel something almost like despair, but then she swallows and closes her eyes and gives him a nod.

“All right. All right, let’s do it.”

Jaime doesn’t waste time – he reaches out with his left hand, taking her right, and she stumbles for a moment but then she follows him back to the door and along the hallway and then downstairs, and then through the yard, and they’re almost running by now, and Jaime thinks that he could laugh out loud if he only didn’t care about drawing attention. The door to the tower is closed, but the lock gives in just by pushing with a bit of strength, and when Brienne is inside as well, Jaime slams the door close before running up the stairs. He feels almost giddy – gods, he hasn’t done something like this in years, not since he and Cersei ran up towards the attics in Casterly Rock when they were fourteen, and it’s not the same thing either. Back then they needed to hide and to be quick and not to get caught. Right now – getting caught isn’t really Jaime’s priority. Even if someone walks in on them, and it won’t happen, what does it change? He wants to take his time and make it good for the both of them – if they both die tomorrow they might as well make the most of the time they have now. Brienne shouldn’t look at him as if she can’t believe that he’d want to share a bed with her, and he’s going to make her change her mind if it’s the last thing he does. The Lord Commander’s room hasn’t obviously been used in a long time, there’s dust everywhere, but the bed is big enough and soft enough. Nothing else they need, right?

Also, while the room hasn’t obviously been heated in a while, at least inside it’s not as cold. 

“I’ll put on a fire,” Brienne says then. There’s some wood near the fireplace, and it would make sense if they’re going to disrobe – also, he’d be useless at it. You need two hands to start a fire.

He tries to get dust off the bed while Brienne kneels in front of the fire – he still feels breathless and possibly a bit dizzy, but the good kind. By the time Brienne’s done, he’s barely managed to dust off the top of the sheets and the pillows, but that should be enough.

He reaches her as she stands up in front of the fire – it’s already a large improvement, even if it’s not had time to warm up the rest of the room. He kicks off his boots while she does the same.

He knows that they lost that sort of urgency that had been there just moments before, but he’s sure that they can find it again. He puts a hand on her shoulder, pushing the fur off and letting his own drop to the ground, and her cheeks look a bit more flushed now.

“You’re sure about this,” she says, still sounding as if she can’t believe it.

“Are you?” He knows it’s not much of an answer, but then she reaches out, one of her hands touching the back of his neck, the other brushing along his right wrist up to where the gold hand is strapped. Oh, she _is_ sure, he can see it. He brings his left hand to her tunic, and then she looks straight at him and –

He doesn’t know how they went from that tentative touching to him almost tearing the tunic apart before Brienne moves back and takes it off herself, and then she’s pressed up against him again, and they’re kissing and her hands are running along his back and his left is fisting her shirt. He’s almost tempted to tear away her shirt without bothering with the laces but then he settles for undoing them as quickly as possible. He lets her take the tunic off because he can’t be bothered to think about his pride – it takes him ages to disrobe with just one hand in the first place and he doesn’t have ages right now.

When the two of them are both shirtless, he takes a moment to look at her again – he hasn’t seen her naked since Harrenhaal, has he? She has more scars, he thinks, more bruises, and she’s still flat and her shoulders are still huge, but all he can see are muscles that you only have if you use a sword frequently. She visibly shivers when he moves close and runs the back of his hand over her stomach, and she doesn’t stop him when he pulls at the laces on her breeches. 

Then he takes a breath and moves his right arm forward.

“Take it off,” he says. “It’s going to be a hindrance.” He can’t do much with the damn thing in the first place, he might as well not have it in the way.

Brienne nods, reaching for the straps, pulling them away almost gingerly, and he almost moans when she runs a rough fingertip over the red signs that wearing the fake hand leaves all over his wrist. He waits until she drops the hand on the ground, over her fur, and then his left is on her wrist and he’s pulling her forward and he’s grabbing a fistful of her hair as they kiss – less hurried, but there’s that same urgency underneath, and he _wants_ – he wants to do a lot of things right now.

Not least, make this good. He’s confident enough that he can do that much. He moves down from her mouth, kissing a line downwards until he reaches her throat – there’s still a faint scar from rope burn there, and he feels sick at knowing that she got it because she wouldn’t swear to kill him, but he doesn’t think about it right now. He presses his mouth against it, his mouth trailing along its length – he can feel Brienne’s pulse point beating erratically against his lips and it makes him grin against her skin. Her hands are gripping at his shoulders, tighter, and he can feel her shaking.

Hells, and they have barely started. He raises his head when he’s kissed every inch of that particular piece of skin, and she moans into it when he presses his lips against her scarred cheek first and then against her own again. She stumbles backwards until she falls down on the bed and he goes along ending up on top of her – not that he needs to worry about crushing her with his weight.

He feels breathless when they break the kiss, and when he opens his eyes she’s looking up at him – her eyes are wide, pupils half-blown, and he really regrets that this will likely be the first and the last time. But other than that, she’s looking at him the way he thought people might look at him years ago when he was knighted, and it’s doing things to him that he isn’t sure he can even put into words. He can’t remember the last time someone looked at him like he was the hero of the story, if that ever happened – not that he doesn’t know perfectly that he’s not that person and he never will be.

“I’m sorry,” he tells her then, not knowing why he had to go and possibly ruin the mood, but – she probably deserves to hear it.

“Why?”

“You deserve better than dying with me. Or for me.”

Brienne swallows and shakes her head. “I beg to disagree. I don’t go to my death with just anyone, ser. Or for just anyone.”

She arches up beneath him, just slightly, as if she’s trying it out and probably she is. He puts his left hand on her hip before moving it to the laces of her breeches (they’re both dressed in black – he supposes there’s some irony in it, at least for what concerns him) and undoes them slowly. Brienne is fisting the sheets in her hand and when Jaime pulls down breeches and smallclothes and presses two fingers in between her legs, she’s wet already – gods, and they’ve just kissed until now. She moans at that, her hands gripping the sheets tighter, and Jaime finds himself getting harder at the sight.

She shivers when he traces her thigh with his fingers, brushing over the scar he left there back when they fought that first time and he still had both his hands, before leaning down and kissing it. Brienne moans again, his name mostly, and there it goes again – he remembers those times when she’d call him just Kingslayer and for some reason he feels ridiculously grateful that it’s not the way she thinks about him anymore. Not that he regrets it – he never will – but still, it wasn’t the way he hoped he’d be remembered when he took his first oath.

He moves his way upwards, putting his mouth over every bruise he sees, faded or not – nothing he never had himself. He wants to laugh when he thinks that Cersei never had sword bruises or scars on her soft, pale skin and that Brienne’s is covered in them – who’d have thought that _she_ ’d have been his mirror, in that sense. He kisses a spot of freckles on her hip, groaning out in pleasure when her hand reaches out and her fingers tangle in his hair – she’s not tugging at it, more running her fingertips shakily through it.

By the time he’s worked through her side and is looking at her directly again, his breeches are constricting and she’s flushing all over, her cheeks dark pink, her pupils blown wider. He smirks before putting his knees around her waist and reaching out with his left hand, pushing a finger inside her slowly. Brienne almost screams as she arches up into it.

“Oh, _oh_ – it’s not like – it’s different from –”

“From when you do that yourself? Interesting. And who do you think about when you do it?” He pushes his finger a bit deeper in, and really, just Brienne of Tarth would be able to look at you as if you were the greatest fool in Westeros and Essos while clenching around your finger.

“In the last two years?” She answers breathlessly. “Just about you.”

At that, Jaime realizes two things. First, a part of him had been thinking that she’d have answered Renly (not like Brienne ever was a good liar, and she couldn’t have right now). Second, that knowing that it’s not the case makes him feel _pleased_ in ways he hadn’t thought could be related to anyone other than his sister.

He pushes a second finger in. Brienne moans loudly enough that they might have heard her down in Castle Black. Jaime couldn’t sincerely care less.

“About me, huh?” he asks, feeling fired up, and fuck he wants to hear her say it.

“ _Yes_ ,” she moans as he shoves his fingers deeper. “Yes, yes, who else?”

“Hells, I should have done this a whole fucking lot sooner,” he says without even thinking before kissing her again, because if they’re kissing she won’t answer and he hadn’t even meant to say it. Brienne kisses back furiously, her hips pushing upwards, and – that’s it, he can’t wait anymore or he’s going to burst right here and now and that’s not the point when it happens.

He breaks the kiss. “Get over me,” he breathes out – the last thing he needs is that he loses balance on his right arm and ruins it at the best moment. She blinks at him before nodding – he takes his fingers away and rolls off her, pushing off his breeches and smallclothes before she moves back so that she’s on top of him. He breathes in relief before palming his cock, trying to at least ease the ache for a moment. Brienne looks down at him and for a moment her eyes go wide in surprise.

“What?” he asks. “Nothing you haven’t seen before, have you?”

She flushes. “It’s just –”

He doesn’t need to hear it. He can imagine well enough. And he figures that there’s no harm in telling the truth.

“Don’t look so surprised. I was hard for you that other time, too. You just couldn’t see it.”

“Back _then_?”

“Yes,” he hisses as he tries to at least lean his head back against the wall. “Apparently it knew better than I did.”

For a moment she looks down at him as if she’s completely outraged – right, that wasn’t the most refined thing he ever said – but then she just starts laughing, putting her head down against his shoulder. He thinks she might be half-crying. And he has to laugh, too, because it’s kind of contagious and he’s never heard her laugh as if she didn’t have a care in the world.

“Well,” he says when he can put more than two words together, “I suppose you did grow out of that seriousness at some point.”

“I suppose it’s your bad influence, but I wish I could regret it.”

He grabs a fistful of her hair and drags her down, and this time they kiss slowly, his cock rubbing against her thigh, and gods but he isn’t sure that he can last much longer.

“So,” he says when she moves back, “shall we? Unless you want to die a maid.”

She shakes her head almost fondly, as if she can’t even find an appropriate rebuttal, and then she takes a breath and he doesn’t try to move as she lowers herself down on his cock – and he had felt how wet she had been before, but it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t think _and she was surprised that I was hard_. He moans as she keeps on moving until he’s buried inside her. And – hells, she’s tight and wet and hot and he wants to move hard enough to ache but he forces himself not to. Brienne has her mouth parted, her eyes closed, her cheeks still dark pink – she wouldn’t make a pretty picture to anyone, but to him right now there’s absolutely nothing about it that isn’t turning him on. He reaches up with his left hand, cups her left breast in his – it fits almost perfectly in his grip – and the noise coming from the back of her throat makes Jaime’s hips arch up without his approval.

Not that she objects – the moment he thrusts up she moans out loud again and meets his thrust, and then she moves back up and lowers herself down experimentally.

“Yes,” he says, “yes, just like _that_ ,” and she keeps on moving, and he keeps on thrusting upwards along with her motions – he moves his hand down, palming her stomach, feeling how taut her muscles are.

And then he forgets himself and reaches up with his right arm – he had been wanting to touch her other breast, see if he could make it stiffen as the one he had touched before, and clearly there’s no hand to touch it with and before he can think about moving his arm away his stump is already in contact with her skin.

For a moment he expects her to stop right now – after all what happened the last time that he –

Except that she reaches out with her hand and grabs his wrist before he can move it, and puts his own arm around her waist as if she couldn’t care less.

He’ll deny to the end of his days (right, to the end of the what time he has left) that _this_ is when the bed legitimately starts creaking.

He’s so far gone that he doesn’t even care about it. He can barely hear the wood creaking and hissing as Brienne’s hips slam downwards and he tries to bury himself as deep inside her as he can, his left hand grabbing her shoulder so hard that he’s sure he’s leaving bruises, and then she stops and says _Jaime_ and _oh_ and _I hadn’t thought_ and then she’s clenching around him and shaking and he can’t –

His entire body shudders as he arches up and comes inside her with one last deep thrust – his eyes are closed and he can only see white spots and he knows he’s saying her name all over but he can barely hear himself speaking as he keeps on shaking, until he’s completely spent and he has to fall back against the pillow, breathing as if he’s just run for hours, his hand’s grip going lax on her shoulder. He can somehow feel it when she pulls out of him and lies down next to him, and at least the bed is large enough for the two of them. She’s breathing slow and deep as well, and when he opens his eyes she has her head against his shoulder and is looking at him in that same way she had been before. He swallows and looks down at the sheets – they’re covered in blood, same as her thighs.

He debates cleaning up. Then he drags up the sheets, covers and all. It’s warm, and the fire is still going, and he doesn’t feel like going back to the main building now.

He forgets the joke he about her maidenhead being in history that he had been about to tell when she puts a hand on his cheek, her rough fingertips brushing almost delicately against it.

“You know, I _am_ sorry that we didn’t do this before.” He might as well own up to it.

“I’d have been more sorry if we hadn’t done it at all,” she replies, her voice hoarse (but the good kind of). He reaches out with his left hand, rubbing his thumb over her neck, feeling strangely elated when she arches into it.

“Shouldn’t we go?” she asks a minute or so later.

“I think that unless we hear proof that we’re getting assaulted, we can afford to spend the night.” He doesn’t tell her that he doesn’t want to go back there because the moment they walk back into the hall he’ll be faced with the fact that they won’t likely be able to do this anymore. It almost feels like this isn’t the Wall, right now – he wants to make the most of it.

“Imagine if the Lord Commander actually decides to walk in here.”

“Well, considering the situation, I suppose he won’t be able to complain about the state of his sheets.”

She snorts, moving in closer – he runs his fingertip over the spot of freckles on her cheek. “I wish he would,” she replies quietly.

He doesn’t say, _I wish the same,_ but he doesn’t need to.

\--

In the end, they get out of the bed at the first morning light. He grabs a pitcher that had been left in the room and shoves handfuls of snow in it after opening the window and closing it as soon as he could. After it melts he rips a piece of his tunic – the bottom was half ripped on its own anyway – and dips it in the water so that they can at least clean up some.

He’s also positive that they won’t fool anyone – Brienne’s face is still flushed and her hair is ruffled and not as straight as usual, and her lips are still kiss-swollen. He’s pretty sure that his own are as well, they _did_ spend some time kissing all over inside that bed.

As they walk downstairs and into the yard, he hopes that the day would last longer.

They’re back where they started last night when he stops her before she can go back towards the main hall.

“Listen, if – if last night it seemed that I’d have preferred it if you had stayed in Winterfell… it’s not exactly like that.”

“How is it then?”

“I still think that if you came here so that I wouldn’t have died on my own then it wasn’t worth it. But I can’t tell you that – that I’m not glad about it.”

Her lips curl up in a smile that he can only describe as sweet, and she moves closer, tentatively curling her fingers around his.

“Perhaps you should put it differently.”

“How?”

“Maybe neither of us dies and somehow when _they_ come, we all manage to kill them. Or maybe we die but we save the realm while doing it. Someone might write a few songs about it. I suppose we still win, don’t we?”

“You and those damned songs,” he says, but he can’t keep the fondness from his tone.

“Didn’t you want the same thing once?”

She really knows him better than he’d have ever thought she could.

(He thinks about how it might be. For some reason, the prospect of dying with a sword in his hand, Brienne at his back and _his_ sword in her hand while they do something worthy of songs doesn’t sound as ridiculous as it would have before they met.)

( _Shall we?, she will ask hours from now, her hand wrapped around Oathkeeper’s hilt._

 _He’ll press his mouth to hers briefly and answer, yes._ )

“Yes,” he admits quietly, turning his palm against hers, his very rough fingertips brushing against her equally not smooth ones. “Maybe I still do.”

End.


End file.
